The Whines of the Dying Fourth Estate

What exactly is MyCentralJersey.com and why does it keep printing these illogical anti-Rutgers diatribes filled with old news and nonsequiturs? Today's unsigned installment: "At Rutgers, football fever may have run its course."

"...with the project not even completed, the bloom may have come off the football team's rose. Of the 12,000 fans on the team's season-ticket waiting list for the coming season, only 35 percent have bought their seats. That's prompting school officials to "restructure"' the ticket plans to try to boost sales. The sour economy has played a role, no doubt. But maybe the passion is already gone. And yet the expansion moves forward..."

The almost completed expansion should end because not every single seat is sold yet? Yeah, why not throw hundreds of gainfully-employed New Jersey construction workers onto the unemployment rolls rather than letting them finish their job? I had to double-check the date to see that this was printed today, because it sounds like the same thing we've heard whining about for years. There's no mention that Rutgers Stadium is on a unprecedented run of sold-out games going back to 2006; there's no mention of the fact that Rutgers Stadium sales are much more impressive than any of the new professional stadiums that were just completed or under construction with public funds in the Bronx, Queens, and the Meadowlands; and where is there any evidence that Rutgers football fans have lost any of their passion? They certainly seemed passionate at the last game played in Rutgers Stadium against Louisville in 2008, and I expect that we'll be just as passionate at the home opener of 2009 when our team emerges from the tunnel on Labor Day, to a very loud and very full stadium dressed in scarlet.

I never considered canceling my seats in section 123 of Rutgers Stadium, but I stopped receiving that Gannett rag called The Asbury Park Press years ago. They are losing readers much more quickly than Rutgers is losing fans or students. Maybe Gannett should reexamine its own plans to move forward.